Stories on the coffee

© Ashai, 2023

ISBN 978-5-0059-8643-6

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

My personal time machine is memories that take me back in time and dreams that send me into the future.

The chairman of the Nobel Prize Award Commission solemnly waves his robe as he stands up. His glasses slide down his nose exactly enough to focus all minus five diopters on a golden leaf decorated with a Victorian-era ornament and the committee’s titular coat of arms.

For many centuries in a row, the scientific community has cynically refuted the well-established misconceptions of millions of people about the laws of the Universe. Whether it’s the myth of a flat Earth, or the theological doctrine of the Sun that supposedly revolves around our planet. Therefore. Without any introductory pathos, no attempt to demonstrate wit or play with the audience, the white-haired scientist simply announces:

«This year, the Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to the Vsevolny Kosmodemyan Egorovich for the discovery of exoplanets1, the calculation of the trajectories of their movement, as well as the justification and calculation of the habitable zone2».

Tuxedos and evening dresses stand up, filling the Golden Hall of the Stockholm City Hall with applause.

That’s just the person to whom they are intended, now thousands of kilometers from them. He cannot get up, because he lies on the surgical table of the Tyumen City Medical Center. Doctors install neuronal stimulators in the astrophysicist’s brain so that he can move again. A sharp exacerbation of Parkinson’s disease occurred against the stress immediately after the announcement of receiving him the Nobel Prize. The isolation from the international information field Soviet physicists, and after 1991 Russian physicists (although less, but still), raised to the rank of sensationalism getting them prestigious prizes. Of course, in the case of Kosmodemyan Yegorovich, in order to see such significant theoretical discoveries, the Nobel Committee did not need to launch the Kepler telescope. They shined too brightly. Nevertheless, the international recognition shocked the humble scientist to a state of paralysis. He froze like a mannequin immediately after the opening of the letter from Sweden.

The «steel» hands of the surgeon insert the microelectrode using Tuohi’s needle, slightly curved at the end, so as not to damage the membrane of the brain. Kosmodemyan Egorovich in consciousness under local anesthesia experiences a terrible, but at the same time pleasant stroking along the convolutions.

«Light hallucinations are possible during calibration, because electrical impulses can reach the pineal gland3,» the assistant warns. «We will experiment with voltage until you feel the limbs again. This is how we will determine the best placement of the implant». The assistant clicks the toggle switch, and Kosmodemyan Egorovich immediately diagnoses that the numbness of the limbs subsides. The fingers come to life, and behind them – the right hand entire. The assistant gives more electric current to the brain, and the patient does not recognize his body. This bag of rotting potatoes, this pile of heavy cobblestones suddenly becomes almost weightless, so light that Kosmodemyan is picked up a barely noticeable draft and forcefully sucks into the ventilation shaft above the room. The airflow drags him along the metal chute directly to the buzzing blades of the industrial air conditioner. He closes eyes tighter and (why?) thinks about the doctors left in the room, who must be frightened and extremely surprised by his «escape».

«V-z-zh-i-i-i,» Kosmodemyan hears a strained sound, reminiscent of a lawnmower that stumbles upon a thick bush. But he doesn’t feel pain. He feels nothing. Kosmodemyan opens his eyes and sees around him many red pieces, into which his body has scattered. Surprisingly, due to the lack of pain, the scene did not seem terrible! Quite the contrary, the freedom of movement was inspiring.

Kosmodemyan sees below his wife crying mournfully on a bench near the medical center. He did not love her and now loves with all heart, but now it does not matter. He can’t even hug her. Then he returns to his first love, with which he became engaged through numbers and formulas in high school: to astrophysics. And in a moment, Kosmodemyan takes off into orbit. From a height, the planet amazes with its beauty. Mountain ranges and water expanses look completely different from the window of an airplane or in satellite photos. They are alive, they seem to breathe, releasing clouds into the sky. Water evaporates from the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, forming an XXL-cloud in its center. It is picked up by the warm air of the south-eastern trade wind, heated from the surface of the African continent. In an effort to compensate for the difference in pressure, the wind carries the spinning cloud disk towards Brazil, where rain returns moisture to the Amazon, and it carries water back into the ocean with its branchy arteries. The work of this huge organism could be observed forever. Perhaps this is what prevents astronauts from going crazy in their aquarium.